Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan George H. W. Bush William J. Clinton Edward M. Kennedy Lloyd N. Cutler Falklands Roundtable Congressional Affairs Symposium |
Presidential Oral History Program Holds APSA Conference RoundtableFrom September 1-4, the American Political Science Association (APSA) held its annual conference in Washington, D.C. At this year’s meeting, the Association devoted an entire panel to a roundtable discussion of the work conducted by the Miller Center’s Presidential Oral History Program, marking APSA’s first consideration of the importance of oral history interviewing to our understanding of the American presidency.  APSA Roundtable James Young opened the roundtable with a retrospective look at presidential oral history interviewing beginning with its inception in 1960 by the Truman Library. This first effort was undertaken to fill in the gaps of the voluminous written record of the Truman presidency, and it was conducted primarily by archivists, not scholars. Young, along with Charles Jones, Erwin Hargrove, Richard Neustadt, and David Truman, saw an opportunity to move beyond supplementing the written record and to systematically debrief administration officials away from the pressures of incumbency, and in 1980 they began the first comprehensive presidential spoken history on the Carter White House. During the Clinton years, Young remembered, the Miller Center commenced two new presidential projects on the George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations, making it the only institution conducting systematic oral histories on the presidency. He described the methodology of the “open-ended research interview of elite persons” and noted how oral history is now the work of scholars, shifting from a once library-based to a university-based enterprise.  Charles Jones and James Young Charles Jones continued on the topic of research, highlighting the benefits oral history can bring to students and presidential scholars alike. He noted that the oral history interviews, carefully structured and administered over a period of several hours, can do much to either confirm evidence from other sources or correct the written record, and even suggest “new avenues of inquiry regarding the presidency.” He pointed out several specific areas where oral history interviewing can foster comparative analysis between administrations, including policy development, communication patterns, staff interactions, and campaigns and transitions. Jones also called upon the academic community to advertise the use of oral history in research and teaching so that this “treasure trove” of information may enhance our understanding of the presidency. Peter Wallison focused his remarks on the concept of memory and its effect on attaining accurate presidential history. According to Wallison, the rapid decline of personal diaries since the Nixon White House has deprived administration officials of detailed accounts of their government service, and oftentimes their memories are unable to fill in the gaps. Even though he kept a personal diary of his tenure at the White House, he still found his own memory to be imperfect in many instances. This is where the value of systematic oral history is found. The Miller Center’s briefing materials for his oral history interview on the Reagan presidency were vital in his recollection of events, and serve as a critical function in the memory of all administration officials who take part in elite interviews.  APSA Roundtable Fred McClure recounted his experiences in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and the challenges inherent in reconciling memory with the documentary record. Following the investigation of Reagan Deputy Attorney General Carol Dinkins, he said he purposely made all written communications “as sterile as possible” during his tenure, and believed other officials acted in a similar vein. Oral history interviewing can potentially supplement or correct such insufficiencies in the written record. He warned, however, that oral histories have “the opportunity to either resolve what looked like conflict or to create conflict where conflict did not exist.” McClure suggested that elite interviewing often yields the greatest benefits the closer it is conducted to one’s tenure in office. Harold Ickes noted that on the major issues, the public record is fairly accurate, but if historians want to fully understand the intricacies of each presidential administration—how the decisions were made, who made them—then the documentary record is vastly insufficient. Personalities are critical to each administration, so elite interviewing is necessary to capture the full picture. Ickes echoed the sentiments of both Wallison and McClure that memories often falter and that he was motivated to keep a detailed diary of his service in the White House so that his recollections would not be lost. He warned, however, that the recent spike in government investigations has fostered the belief that “the fewer documents the better, but it is a great, great loss, and oral history is a way of making up for that.” Nancy Baker discussed the importance of oral history in addressing ever-increasing lapses in the documentary record. She recalled using oral history interviews from the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations in past research, but noted that none of these had been conducted systematically, and that the Miller Center’s presidential projects have led to a remarkable advancement in the field. She said that not only can oral history enrich our understanding of events, it can also provide insight into how political figures view themselves and those they worked with while in office. Baker concluded by describing the process of Miller Center interviews from briefing book construction to interview, and the value that a consistent interview methodology holds for students of the presidency. Karen Hult commended the work of past oral history interviews, particularly the Miller Center’s presidential projects, as integral to her own work, and informed scholars of the need to assemble all existing oral history interviews into an archived collection. While extolling the potential of oral history, she cautioned against the dangers of “quixotic reliability” and the fallibility of memory. However, she admitted that the written record can also be unreliable, making oral history indispensable to understanding presidential history in its entirety. At the conclusion of these remarks, the audience was invited to join the discussion and pose questions to the panel on the challenges and benefits of oral history interviewing. University of California-Berkeley professor Nelson Polsby echoed the concerns of Hult and Baker over shared or “scripted” memory, and asked where he could find more literature on the psychology of interviewing. I.M. Destler of The Brookings Institution commented on the potential benefits of group interview sessions, pointing out similar events undertaken by Brookings’ project on the National Security Council. Other inquiries touched on a range of topics, including the treatment of vice presidents and first ladies in presidential oral history, and the unique affect the George H.W. Bush oral history could have on a future George W. Bush project. The entire panel actively participated in this portion of the roundtable, interacting both with the audience and with other members of the panel when framing their responses. Following the event, the audience of scholars, journalists, and outside observers commended the panel’s discussion, and praised the Miller Center’s contribution to oral history interviewing and our understanding of the American presidency. Throughout the remainder of the APSA conference, several calls were made by scholars to heed the advice of Karen Hult and work to assemble all oral history interviews into a single archive. As the nation’s leading institution in the field of presidential oral history, the Miller Center has been contacted and is considering a role in collecting and archiving past oral histories from within the scholarly community. For more information on past and current projects, please visit our webpage.
James Sterling Young, Director, Miller Center Presidential Oral History Program: “We thought, why not try the idea of going beyond the purpose of correcting or filling gaps in what was already written? Why not systematically collect from the people who wrote or received those documents, who had the experience of working in or closely with the White House, and get them to speak freely about the whole range of their experiences—what they did, what the presidency really was like in the real political world at that time—after the pressures of incumbency were over?” Charles O. Jones, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison : “You’ve just got a treasure trove of material coming your way once all of these get online and are available. . . . These interviews are not simply conversations with public officials or their reminiscences. They are carefully structured and administered over a period of hours, typically a day and a half. The stated purpose, as understood by the respondents and by the interviewers, is to provide future scholars with an oral record to supplement that of the written record.” Fred McClure, Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs, George H.W. Bush Adminstration: “I don’t even remember being in some of these meetings; what do they now mean? It was at that point in time that I decided that every memo that I wrote from that point forward in government service would be as sterile as possible. . . . So what sort of texture do you get from that? How do you take that and balance that with what continues in terms of the written word and balance that with what was going on at the time? It is often what is not written down that probably has more value.” Harold Ickes, Deputy Chief of Staff for Political Affairs and Policy, William J. Clinton Administration: “[The Miller Center oral history interview] was very useful for me, and it was also fun. And the final thing I would say is that the interview briefing books prepared by the Miller Center staff was really very good, and I think without that—I analogize it to a lawyer getting ready to bring a case, especially if he or she is going to do a cross-examination. You really have to be prepared, otherwise much time is wasted. The preparation here, in the documents that were sent to me ahead of time, really did help revive my memory.” Nancy V. Baker, Associate Professor of Government, New Mexico State University: “I had the benefit of an oral history conducted with Ramsey Clark one year later, right after the end of the [Lyndon Johnson] administration. . . . In that interview process, even though it was an excellent interview, I didn’t have the benefit of it being systematized and conducted in a way where the quality of questions was consistent, and that there were a lot of similar questions asked of other administrations. So this is really where the Miller Center has staked out a unique and very, very valuable service for us as political scientists by approaching this whole process in a very systematic way.” Karen M. Hult, Professor of Political Science, Virginia Polytechnic University: “I need to express my own very sincere gratitude and admiration for the Miller Center’s Presidential Oral History Project. As scholars, my co-author Chuck Walcott and I have benefited greatly from especially the Carter oral histories for our recent book, Empowering the Presidency.” |